Economic data suggests that the longer a society lived under Socialism the more difficult it becomes to rejoin the modern world.

Statistics are comparable to beauty. That is said to be in the eye of the beholder. Similarly, the meaning of a statistic is a figment of the Weltanschauung of its interpreter. For this reason, quite frequently, statistics do not prove before the court of reason the thesis they are summoned to support. Having just returned from a stay in Munich to gather impressions about Germany’s to me hard-to-get-used-to decline, I had to haste through a pile of publications that accumulated during my absence. Therefore, it is quite accidental that the data with which this text acquaints you did not dive into the “memory hole.”

Essentially my lucky find is a comparative representation of adjusted per capita gross domestic product levels achieved between 1934 and 2004. According to the table the US went from 5,000 to 30,000. Neutral Switzerland progressed from the same base to 22,500. Ditto for war-winning England, while defeated Finland, coming from about 2,500, also scores in the same range. Germany starts at 4,000. She reaches 6,000 during the war, drops, having become the battle-field of a lost war, to 2,000 in ’45, only to peak around 19,000. Now comes what I first wanted to call “the surprise.” Only it is not a surprise but a divergence attributable to an end result that is programmed by man-made factors. One finds the clincher by digesting the info on the USSR/Russia — a victor — and Poland, judicially a winner but in fact doubly-defeated (by the German-Soviet alliance in 1939, and then in 1944 by the USSR). What connects the latter cases is membership in the “Socialist Camp of Peace.”

By contrasting the two groups represented, we get one with variations on a free market economy and another batch depicting the successes of socialist planning.

The curves tracing the first group require an effort by the observer. To get the story he is required to follow zig-zags while he also needs constantly to raise his sight. The representations of the Polish and Soviet case begin at about the figure of 2,000 — where Germany, too, stood in ’45. At that level and date the three score even. Prior to the collapse of Communism, Poland makes it to the 5,000 level and the Soviet Union to around the 7,000 one. Following the dissolution of the Outer and then the Inner Soviet Empire, the Polish curve begins to climb to the 8,000 level while the SU/Russia’s sinks to 4,000. There it reverses and then ends at 5,000.

The data you can interpret in many ways, and even if aware of the well-known limitations of GDP numbers, valuable insights are generated. The one that fits this article’s emphasis pertains to the competitive advantage resulting from the politically imposed economic system. With the help of Socialism, compared to the US, the SU converted its disadvantage of 2:1 to one of 5:1. Defeated and truncated Germany and the SU were 1:1 in 1945. At the peak of Moscow’s armament efforts (arms being goods that “count” thereby distorting the figures) the ratio became 3:1. The conclusion: when Communism failed it failed as an economic system. That it did not go belly-up earlier has its explanation not in relative economic strength but in the political system’s ability to override its own consequences by oppression.

Equally condemning of the system is its “aftermath.” The growing gap between the Russian and the Polish curves show Polish growth and Russia’s decline after the collapse of the SU. This phase is followed by the latter’s delayed and slower recovery regardless of a greater endowment with sellable natural resources. The data suggests that the longer a society lived under Socialism the more difficult it becomes to rejoin the modern world. This should be a warning to those who do not categorically refuse to listen to those who still advocate collectivistic solutions to the world’s troubles. My recommendations can safely skip addressing the “advocates:” they have freed their minds from the facts that disturb their ideal.

Earlier the advisable caution regarding GDP figures has been mentioned. Its numbers do include armaments — thereby inflating considerably Soviet performance during the 80s. The same goes for Germany’s war-time performance. Booty from conquest, forced labor — as in the case of the USSR and National Socialist Germany — also skew the data. So does the possible manipulative distortion of quantified performance that flows into the total picture. What the Ministry for this and the Commissariat of that report must be taken with a grain of salt. Not only Enron’s numbers-crunchers can produce the kind of miracles on paper that reality spits out!

This cheating, and rest assured that Communist data is full of it, can begin at the lowest level. Let my case serve as a personalized illustration. After the age of thirteen I put in two-and-a-half involuntary years “building Socialism.” My first job was to dig. The idea was that in order to start new vineyards the ground has to be dug up to a depth of two meters (two yards or so) before the planting could begin. Now, in Stalin’s empire all work had been categorized and according to that performance levels, called “norms” were set. Political correctness required that the norms, to reflect Socialism’s victories, be constantly raised. This went to the point where the honest fulfillment of the requirement became impossible. Nevertheless, the norm had to be fulfilled by free and un-free “toilers” alike. Those who failed got less money or food. Habitual laggards were “enemies of the people.” That designation was definitively detrimental to your health.

Now, the daily norm for a digger was expressed in cubic meters. The norm changed according to the quality of the soil. For instance, the required amount of stony earth was less than in the case of sandy soil. Cheating occurred with the connivance of the supervisors. The fulfillment of their norm depended on our performance. Thus the terrain was declared to be rocky. Even so, the target set to fulfill the ruling ideology’s fiction could not be met. Fortunately the daily performance in cubic meters was counted by measuring the square meters of the surface multiplied by two. You guessed it, we did not dig down to two meters. This brought achieving the norm within reach. In the evening, when the accounts were made, the amount separating us from 100% plus the obligatory over-fulfillment of around 15%, were just added. Had someone “further up” added up the square meters we claimed by the time the project was finished, the new plantation’s size would have covered half the country.

Those who think this is the end of the story underestimate the planning system’s cumulative ability to distort figures. The on paper larger-than-real domain was one day to produce wine according to its on-paper size. This dew, when accessed by the “toilers,” created a quantifiable amount of good feeling. The exported part of the production would generate an income. To be invested into means of production that would advance the cause of catching up and surpassing decaying Capitalism. With all this said, you have just found out why the GDP gap, instead of narrowing, broadened even more than the numbers can tell, and why the “catching up” had no chance to take place in reality.